FAQ

FAQ #124

Find out what an Insurance catergory A B C D accident Damage means?

After a vehicle has been involved in an accident the owner will contact his or her insurance company, they will generally fill out an accident report and forward it to the insurers and the vehicle will then be inspected by an insurance assessor either employed by the insurance company or a freelance insurance assessor who will also fill out a car (all vehicles - motorcycles, vans etc) accident report and assess the damage to the vehicle.

The assessment of the vehicle included in the car accident report will be based on the financial cost and the assessor will then decide whether the vehicle should be repaired or declared a total insurance loss, a write off. In other words it is not worthwhile to repair a vehicle if the cost is greater than a replacement vehicle or the sum insured.

If the assessor decides to declare the vehicle a total loss it will be placed into one of four categories:

* Category A: Scrap only (i.e. with few or no economically salvageable parts and which is of value only for scrap metal

* Category D: Repairable total loss vehicle where repair costs including VAT do not exceed the vehicle's pre-accident value

If it states on the car accident report by the assessor that the vehicle has been a category A total loss should a vehicle be registered again it would have to go through a vehicle identity check (VIC), carried out by VOSA to establish the vehicle identity, it should also appear on the registration document as a category A.

The same applies for categories B and C, however a category D is not required to go through a VIC. These categories are extremely useful in collating vehicle accident history on a given registration number - some vehicle have even been written off several times and this will show on a mycarcheck.com car accident report or vehicle accident report that is included within our vehicle data check.

If you wish to purchase a vehicle included in a car accident report then you must declare this to your insurance company, otherwise they may not pay out in the event of an accident or claim if this had not been made known to them when you were first insured. Remember insurance companies do not check vehicles before they insure them for adverse car history or car damage reports, it is down to the vehicle owner to do this.

The above categories on any given registration number that has been deemed a Total Loss by an insurance company can easily be found by typing the registration number into the check box at www.mycarcheck.com you will also receive other information such as Stolen data from The Police National Computer (PNC) and you will be able to perform a VIN/Chassis check to validate the vehicle's id.

Safety is the main concern with accident damaged vehicles, if a further collision happens then the vehicle could disintegrate, there are over 4 million vehicle currently taxed and on our roads that are regarded as a total loss so check it out first - this can be done for as little as £3.95 by by clicking the image below and you will receive the data instantly.

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